Please answer sincerely and intelligently, but what exactly is the reason why we cannot pull out of Iraq?

No Reason At All....

They have a democratically elected government, leadership, A viable Army and Police force, so I see no reason to stay behind and teach them how to SHOOT each other...hell they've been doing THAT for Centuries!!

I hate this war, but even I think we need a phased withdrawal and not an immediate pull-out. Why? Because while Saddam was a bad, bad man, he kept things running fairly smoothly for everyone but his enemies/victims. Once we invaded, we messed up their infrastructure--the way almost everything worked. So far, the new Iraq hasn't gotten a handle on how to keep the peace in their civil war, or how to manage a number of other things. So as the Iraq Study Group report suggests, we need to leave some servicemen to help train the Iraqi military to do a better job at that.

Short version: We broke Iraq, and so have some responsibility to help fix it. But it should not be an open-ended responsibility. There do need to be benchmarks and a timeline.

ETA: We *are* doing what we can to help repair the Iraqi infrastructure. However, with TWO MILLION of their citizens having already fled to other countries, everything can't be running that smoothly yet. If two million Americans suddenly left, despite us being a much larger country, would the mail still get delivered daily and the medical services run that well?

First of all - 23 million Iraqis are depending on us to defend them until they are strong enough themselves to protect the democracy they choose in UN certified elections.

Everybody who advocates pulling out is advocating leaving the Iraqi people at the mercy of the thugs who car-bomb civilians.

And to your second question: Soldiers are allowed to speak their minds. Their are guidelines (such as no criticism of an elected official) but this is something that is allowed. There are no threats and no coercion. Instead of trying to rationalize away the fact that the vast majority of the troops support what they are doing there - why don't you ask yourself: "What do they know that the news media is not telling you?"

Because to do so would be a defeat that would enable the Iranians to, in effect, take control of Iraq. It would lead to chaos, true civil war, and the deaths of millions of Iraqis.

Because to do so would be seen as a huge victory for al Queda - Iraq is currently referred to in the Arab world as "The Graveyard of al Queda".

Because to do so would be to allow a 7th century terrorist ideology to gain control over the energy source to the world.

Because to do so would be a foreign policy disaster - Showing that no one could ever trust the US again. We would never again have an ally. This would be the SECOND time that the Democrats have cut our allies off at the knees and left them to die.

Because it's the wrong thing to do.

Because we're winning.

And yes, you can. You'll be mocked, but that's about it. There are a fair number of troopers speaking out against the war. They're just in a very small minority.

Orion

EDIT: For the clueless saying "We've destroyed the infrastructure of the country" - You are so ignorant, it is personalyl embarassing to me as an American to call you a countryman. Do you have ANY idea how much rebuilding we've done in Iraq? From infrastructure that was destroyed LONG before we got there? Time for you to head down to Bob's Clue-O-Rama and get a clue.

We cannot pull out of Iraq now because democracy comes slowly. And this is a civil war based on religion and property rights. Everyone wants the Holy Land.

If we pull out now there will be no government established and eventually (sooner than later) a corrupt government will be set up with their goals set on attacking the USA and repaying what (they think) we did wrong to them.

If we pull out before Iraq is capable of policing itself and its borders then its nieghbors will most likely invade. What our troops are trying to do over there is to make a stable self-supporting country.

If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, Saudi oil would drop in price because of the influx of Iraqi oil currently being denied to the world market. If that happened, Bush and Cheney would lose money. Bush & his cronies don't need to steal the Iraqi oil, they just need to deny it to the world market. The truth hurts don't it.

Like Powell said-- its the Pottery Barn scenario. You break it, you buy it. We're in too deep to just pull out. We pull out and Iraq will fold to the insurgents. It would get much worse. That's why we never should have gotten involved in occupying that country.

Because we've utterly destroyed the infrastructure of that country, and if we withdraw now, complete pandemonium is going to break out.

It was a stupid idea to go there, but now that we're there we may as well try and set up some type of situation that isn't hurtful to the US.